January's Adventure

One of our New Year’s Resolutions as a couple was to go on an

“adventure”

once a month. Well, this month we didn’t necessarily plan it this way, but our adventure ended up being two consecutive weekends with several different events.

The first part of our January Adventure was our Missions Weekend with the Youth from MBC. We drove up to Cook Springs, Alabama, stayed at WorldSong and did some missions work. Why was this adventurous? We were with students ranging from ages 11-17. That’s ALWAYS an adventure. We trekked into the outskirts of Birmingham, played with underprivileged children, scrubbed a “game wagon,” learned what mineral spirits are, stayed up really late, slept in separate beds for the first time since marriage, played with seatbelts, laughed A LOT, ate cafeteria food, and played in the snow all within less than 24 hours. Whew.

The second part of our January adventure was technically RJ’s Christmas present from me. I bought him tickets to see a play called Bear Country (link). It was shown by our local, prestigious, Alabama Shakespeare Festival (where we got engaged *winks*). Bear Country told the story of legendary Alabama football coach

                                               

Paul “Bear” Bryant.      

It was ingenious.

The first scene starts the play off perfectly.

The lights came up spotted on the Bear who is poised perfectly against his famous tower. He was wearing the famous outfit: plaid coat, slacks, red vest, and hound’s-tooth hat. I got chills. He begins to speak, and it seemed as if I was listening to THE bear. It was like he was talking directly to me. He was the narrator for the entire story that captured his football career from beginning to end. There was a lot of humor intricately woven into the dialect. We laughed multiple times. There were some slight references to drunkenness, and the language was not of my choosing; however, varying religious undertones surfaced many times throughout the show. He quoted some of his prayers he llifted during hard times, and he sung “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”

The Bear’s story is such a prevalent part of our state’s history, and ASF portrayed it in manner that the Bear himself would be proud. Overall, I give it seventeen thumbs up. I would recommend this play for all football fans, Alabama or Auburn.

Oh yeah, we ate at Bob Baumhowers.  RJ had wings, that he said were “ok” and I had a Gooey Bacon Cheeseburger. The name Gooey is allegedly because of the amount of cheese they put on the burger. It seemed pretty dry to me. It will be a while before I eat there again. Not too satisfied, though the “Gooey Cheese Fries”… Divine.